Last year, all offices of the Income Tax Department were networked and a different software used to network them.

The D-PAN software enabled the department found some people in Indore who have been issued PAN cards more than once. Such cases were detected not just in Indore but also in Bhopal and other places too.

Now, the department has issued notices to such people who have been issued multiple PAN cards to deposit their duplicate cards with the authorities concerned failing which the card holders concerned will have to pay a fine of Rs 10,000.

PAN card issue system introduced by the Income Tax Department in 1998, had a photograph of the Income Tax payee. The cards were earlier issued from Mumbai, hence it took a long time for it to be issued.

Meanwhile, the applicants often sent reminders for the PAN cards. From 2001 the cards were issued locally, and the applicants needed to submit their applications to the local office of the department.

Those who could not get the cards from Mumbai office, tried to obtain them immediately from the local office as it was mandatory to quote PAN on the IT return forms from 2003. The local office issued PAN cards swiftly.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai office too issued cards on the basis of the earlier applications and thus most taxpayers ended up with two cards.

According to rules framed recently, a taxpayer must have only one PAN card. In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, there are 2.8 lakh taxpayers possessing two PAN cards most of them are residents of Indore, Bhopal, Raipur and other big cities.

The number of taxpayers of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh who have been issued PAN cards number around 25 lakh.

The local office at Indore has refused to divulge the information on the number of taxpayers with double cards though the last date for cancellation of the extra card has been fixed as December 31. After this date, the formula of one man one card will be enforced.

At present, around 13 lakh taxpayers across the country have more than one card. The department started issuing notices to those with extra cards, requesting them to send the cards by post if it was inconvenient for them to reach the Income Tax offices personally.